[This document is NCITS/J13 99/009]
Draft Agenda for 14-17Oct99 J13 Meeting at SRI
====================
NCITS/J13 will meet at
SRI
333 Ravenswood Drive
Menlo Park, CA 94025
Oct 14-16 1999 starting at 9:30 AM Pacific Time, Oct 14.
As discussed and agreed at the July 27, 1999 meeting, this meeting is
scheduled to abut but not overlap the 1999 LUGM in San Francisco.
Menlo Park is on the San Francisco Peninsula about 30 miles South of
San Francisco and immediately North of Palo Alto. It is served by all
three Bay Area airports: San Jose, San Francisco, and (slightly less
conveniently) Oakland. Shuttle Van service and other transportation
modes are readily available. SRI is also convenient to a station of
Caltrain, the local commuter rail that runs between San Francisco and
San Jose.
I anticipate starting each day at 9:30 and ending Thursday and Friday
by 5:30 unless there is committee vote to extend. I anticipate ending
somewhat earlier on Saturday afternoon, depending on the pleasure of
the committee.
I expect no facilities fee will be charged for this meeting. My
thanks go to Mark Stickel and SRI for making available their
facilities.
Information about local hotels/motels will be forthcoming shortly.
Mark is checking whether SRI has any existing information materials.
Steven M. Haflich, Chair, NCITS/J13
smh@franz.com (510)548-3600
==================== Draft Agenda
(1) Call to order and introductions.
(2) Appointment of a Secretary Pro Tem.
(3) Approval of draft agenda. This parliamentary item is required by
NCITS procedures.
(4) Approval of draft minutes from the 27 July, 1999 meeting.
(5) Explanation of the mechanics of NCITS Project Proposals (SD-3) and
the several avenues available to J13.: Errata, Revision,
Amendments, Supplements, Technical Reports, new separate Standards
(e.g. for some particular Lisp library API).
(6) Discussion of specific technical areas for standards work. (See
notes below.)
(7) One or more ballots of the form "Shall J13 undertake drafting a
Project Proposal for X to be submitted to NCITS?" Note that these
votes are _not_ formal NCITS actions and are not the same as the
formal vote that forwards such a proposal on to NCITS. These
anticipated votes merely establish J13's internal decision to
start drafting one or more particular proposals.
(8) Presentation and consideration of Mallery et al: Networked,
Incremental Language Extension as Part of the Standards Process.
(8) Announcements and new business.
(9) Consideration and scheduling of next meeting, etc.
====================
Now here's more explanation:
The schedule of this meeting is as tentatively decided at the last
meeting. There was sentiment then for a three-day rather than a
two-day meeting, and some online discussion subsequently. I find it
impossible to anticipate the schedule of the upcoming meeting with
enough confidence to decide whether three days will be needed, but
since some members will be traveling long distances, and since we will
likely only be able to manage an occasional face-to-face meeting, I
judge it would be unwise not to plan for the longer meeting. (Also,
round trip airfare including a Saturday-might stayover are often much
less expensive.) If we decide to adjourn earlier, members will be
free to enjoy themselves, or try to fly home standby, or whatever. To
accommodate any members who cannot stay for Saturday, I will try so
much as possible to arrange all the formal agenda items on the first
two days and leave the remaining time to any extended technical
discussion, possibly splitting into subgroups. The most important
business of this meeting will be (7), voting to start drafting one or
more Project Proposals. My desire would be that this would happen in
the afternoon of the second day, leaving the third day to launch work
on those proposals, but I can make no guarantee.
Since J13 has no active Project Plans, our only legitimate business is
basically to monitor the state of our area (Lisp) and to react with
new Project Proposals when any become appropriate. In particular,
NCITS rules _prohibit_ J13 from performing any work on a standard
until such a Project Proposal has been approved. This would seem to
prohibit us from doing any technical work towards any future standard.
However, it is obviously impossible to draft a Project Proposal
without having some pretty clear notion of the expected technical
content of the proposed work, and that can only be done by technical
study and discussion of the subject area. NCITS is well aware of this
inconsistency, and these things just have to be treated with judgement
and common sense. Therefore, I will rule for this meeting that any
technical subject and any technical discussion, even if quite
detailed, is legitimate material for this meeting. However, any such
discussion must remain grounded with the purpose of scoping an
eventual project proposal. Only technical discussion that appears to
preestablish the content of some such future standard would be out of
order.
In practical terms, I don't think this restriction will be much of a
limitation at all.
There have been any number of subject areas proposed for work.
Obviously, the more discussion, investigation, and documentation that
is be prepared by proponents of a particular area, the better (and
probably more favorably) that area can be considered at the meeting.
However, since any area of Lisp is a valid are for work, no potential
area will be considered out of bounds for item (6). If a
supermajority is convinced that a particular area should be ruled out
of consideration, there are normal parliamentary mechanisms to
adequate close that discussion and move on.
It would be helpful if members who feel strongly in favor of
undertaking standards work in one or another technical area would
declare themselves and become that advocate for that item: Be prepared
to state the technical need for the area of standard work, start
collecting a list of specific issues, and start collecting and
organizing available resources (e.g. exiting practices), arguments for
and against, etc.
JCMA in cooperation with others prepared some thoughts on how the Lisp
standard process could be accelerated and has asked J13 to consider
them. This reflects concerns that the normal NCITS/ANSI process is
too slow for the speed of evolution in modern computer systems. NCITS
too is quite concerned with this mismatch. The issue is legitimate
and proper for us to consider (although I may personally have to play
devil's advocate in defense of NCITS procedural requirements). The
subject will be given appropriate time for presentation and reaction
by the committee, with time allocated as the committee sees fit.